See the exclusive video for the acoustic version of Coma’s Cel Mai Frumos Loc De Pe Pământ (The most beautiful place in the world). For this version of the song, the band used real forest sounds recorded in the Mușeteica primary forest from the Făgăraș Mountains in Romania.

Listen to the forest!

The primary forests of Romania released their first music album. Listen and discover why our forests should remain the most beautiful place in the world. Act now to protect it by signing the petition. Download the album either for free, or for a small donation to Greenpeace Romania on Bandcamp. And if you have a band of your own, you are free to use the sounds in further compositions, thus helping us to take this message even further.

A bit about primary forests

Primary forests are unspoiled nature, undisturbed by any human impact. In Europe, primary and old-growth forests are scarce, only a fraction being protected by law. In Romania we don’t know how much survived out of a minimum of 220 000 hectares documented in 2005.

What can I do?

Help Romania's primary forests make their voices heard. Tell their the story. Join Greenpeace Romania and sign the petition asking the Ministry of Waters and Forests to protect this invaluable national, European and world heritage. Donate and download the album to help us spread their beautiful song and keep it alive.

Map

After extensive research, Greenpeace Romania released The Potential Primary Forests Map of Romania. See here how many potential primary forests we still have and where they might be.

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A bit about primary forests

Forests are complex communities formed over thousands of years of natural selection and evolution, they are wild areas home to over 75% of all land species.

In Romania, particularly in the Carpathian Mountains, the biggest areas of remaining temperate primary forests outside of Russia can be found. They are home to over 13 000 species, Europe’s largest brown bear population, endangered and endemic species and large carnivores like lynx and wolves.

The primary and old-growth forests need our protection. We cut them out of lack of knowledge, lack of understanding and severe lack of empathy. We cut them out of greed, out of pure selfish reasons. Up until recently, the law was ignorant of them, the very people in charge of their protection tolerating their destruction, or even encouraging it by turning a blind eye.

This lead to a dramatic decrease in area covered with primary forests from 3 million hectares recorded in the 19th century, to 2 million in the 1900s, 800 000 hectares at the beginning of the communist regime and 400 000 hectares in 1984. In 2005 220 000 hectares were documented. Now, we don’t even know if we have half left.

Why are the primary forests so important?

Forests, in general, are our strongest ally in the fight against climate change - they store almost 861 billions of tons of carbon in biomass, soil and litter, and absorb 30% of the annual global anthropogenic emissions. The destruction of forests is responsible for up to a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases emissions - more that all the planes, cars, ships and trains on this planet combined.

The primary forests are enormous carbon reservoirs - larger than the cultivated forests’ equivalent area, and their destruction would mean the release of a huge amount of carbon into the atmosphere that can only be compensated for at the price of a decades-long gap.

Time is a luxury we do not have.

In order to save them we need to let them live as they’ve done for hundreds and thousands of years, according to their dynamic, following natural processes and cycles. In Romania, they are legally protected only by registering them in the National Catalogue of Primary and Old-growth Forests in Romania.

Join Greenpeace Romania and sign the petition to save the last primary forests of Europe. Ask the Ministry of Waters and Forests to protect this invaluable national, European and world heritage!